Here are my three favorite blues for when I’m writing on less-than-ideal paper.

Otherwise good behaving, heavily-shading and/or sheening inks more often than not are rendered by bad paper into flat, feathering, bleedthrough-prone monstrosities.

But not these three inks. Shading is heavy on all three and bleedthrough isn’t an issue at all.

Noodler’s Bad Blue Heron: A part if Noodler’s Warden Series, their most fraud resistant inks currently produced. Feathering sent a problem and shading is heavy. There’s even a tad of the ink’s subtle sheen.

Sailor Sei-Boku: This ink is one of the only pigmented inks on the market that’s truly safe for regular use in fountain pens. On copy paper its behavior couldn’t be better. Shading and sheen are prominent. The sheen is especially striking considering the absorbency of the paper.

Rohrer & Klingner Salix: This is an iron gall ink, a category of ink that is known for its good behavior on a wide variety of paper.

This is an ink with one crazy long name, but luckily it’s good enough to justify it. There’s some serious discussion about whether or not Akkerman inks are simply re-bottled Diamine inks. I haven’t seen anything to convince be either way, but I will say that this ink is VERY similar to its supposed analog, Diamine Prussian Blue (which, coincidentally, I also love).